AT THE UNIVEESITY 59 



dry as we marched. We halted for a day or two at intervals to 

 rest and refit. During these rest periods we usually devoted our 

 time to exploring the immediate neighbourhood of our stopping 

 place, making the more intimate acquaintance of the people, and 

 trying to pick up what we could of the language. We had with 

 us a Norse Dictionary, a never-ending source of amusement on 

 account of the quaint equivalents with which it abounded. But 

 we trusted to what we could learn viva voce, and must have made 

 some progress with the language, for I find amongst my letters 

 several in Norwegian from travel acquaintances which contain 

 the assurance that my knowledge of their language was a sufficient 

 excuse for using it in writing to me. Ramsay's great aptitude 

 for languages enabled him to make very rapid progress, and he 

 afterwards continued the study both at home and on subsequent 

 visits to Norway and became very proficient in it. I noticed 

 in Norway again what I have referred to in connection with our 

 Highland trip, that his interest in the language was much greater 

 than in the history and traditions of the people, to which so far 

 as I remember he paid very little attention. He took great 

 pleasure, however, in the Norse folk-songs, many of which we 

 learned from chance companions on our walks. We found great 

 interest in compiling lists of Scandinavian words which, although 

 not known in England, are in common use in Scotland. These 

 words were either introduced into Scotland by Scandinavian 

 settlers or are survivals of the common Teutonic vocabulary 

 which persisted in Norway and in the northern parts of the 

 British Isles after they ceased to be used elsewhere. I remember 

 the delight with which we first heard ' barn ' (Scot, bairn) ' child/ 

 and ' gjore' (Scot, gar) ' make do, 5 and many others with which 

 we had been familiar from our earliest days but had never before 

 heard out of our own country. 



Another amusement of Ramsay's during our longer halts was 

 sketching in water colours, an art in which he possessed no 

 inconsiderable share of the talent which belongs to his cousins, 



